Founder of UI design team The Astonishing Tribe (TAT) leaves RIM

Slashgear is reporting that TAT founder Hampus Jakobsson has left RIM. Jakobsson was the founder of The Astonishing Tribe (TAT), a UI design team that’s working on the interface improvements seen in BlackBerry 10. He posted a tweet that confirmed he is exiting RIM and leaving his work “to others in RIM now.” When asked why he left RIM, Jakobsson said “cause I’m a startup-guy and even if I really liked the company and the people, I felt it was time to start another one.”

RIM added TAT to its ranks back in December 2010, and the team began work on the BlackBerry Playbook. Now that the older BlackBerry OS is being replaced by the QNX-powered BlackBerry 10, the team has shifted to working on RIM’s upcoming operating system. We will see the fruits of their labors in early 2013.